Cop-Killers, Terrorists and Mamdani and Cuomo by Ronald Kolb-10/25/25

On September 25, infamous fugitive terrorist and cop-killer Joanne Chesimard a.k.a. Assata Shakur passed away in Havana. She had been given asylum by the Castro government after her conviction and life sentence for killing a New Jersey State Trooper in 1973 and her subsequent breakout from prison aided by other terrorists in 1979.

Two of the terrorists who helped her escape, David Gilbert and Judith Clark, were later convicted of killing three, including two police officers, and would later be released with a huge assist from former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and a current New York mayoral candidate. They were among the first of 43 cop-killers that the Cuomo's hand-picked State Parole Board have released since 2017.

Fellow mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa brought that stunning fact up at a recent mayoral debate, yet Cuomo said nothing. And the Democratic Socialists of America, who are huge supporters of Queens Assemblyman and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (and who is a proud member of the far-left group), recently honored Chesimard's legacy, yet he has refused to comment on their action or on Chesimard herself.

Politicians from both parties and law enforcement from around the tri-state denounced her as a terrorist and cop-killer, and Mamdani had to know who she was because she has been celebrated by the left for decades. 

Chesimard was born in Queens, New York in 1947. She joined the Black Panthers briefly in 1970 but left them the following year for the more radical Black Liberation Army (BLA), and being one of the few female members, she was considered as the "soul of the group."

Their most notable actions in the 1970's was the targeting and assassination of at least a dozen police officers, usually killed in pairs. At about 1 a.m. on May 2nd, 1973, Chesimard was in a car on the New Jersey Turnpike with two other BLA members. They had false ID's and were all wanted--Chesimard for two bank robberies and two bar robberies--and one of which included a murder. 

They were speeding, had a broken taillight and were stopped by State Troopers James Harper and Werner Foerster. A shootout quickly ensued and all were hit. Foerster went down with his pistol lying nearby and Chesimard picked it up and discharged a fatal headshot. Foerster was 34 and left behind a widow and three-year old son.

The three terrorists then fled. One of them was quickly found dead after suffering fatal injuries. Chesimard and her other companion were found after an extensive manhunt, and she was convicted in 1977 and eventually sent to the Clinton (N.J.) Correctional Facility for Women.

While Chesimard was in prison, the May 19th group, who were remnants of the Weather Underground and after Vietnam named themselves after the birthdays of Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X, wanted to rob banks and "expropriate money for the struggle," and wanted to "liberate" Chesimard from prison and use funds to harbor her and then smuggle her to Cuba for asylum.

The May 19th group were mostly white females and included former Weather members Susan Rosenberg and Judith Clark (who had both even attended some of her New Brunswick murder trial), Kathy Boudin and her companion David Gilbert, with whom she would share a son, and Marilyn Buck, who would consider herself BLA. They joined forces with the BLA and spent nine months planning the jailbreak--and it was a success. 

On November 2nd, 1979, Chesimard had left four phony names of BLA members as "visitors" and they smuggled guns in through lax security, and giving a .357 Magnum to Chesimard and took two guards hostage in a prison van, and driving out of the prison (which had no gates) they transferred to vehicles rented by Gilbert and driven by Rosenberg, Clark and Buck and then released the two hostages. Chesimard hid at an address with Buck in Pittsburgh and eventually arrived in Havana, receiving asylum.

In 1980, after the success of the Chesimard breakout, the May 19th group decided to graduate from robbing banks to robbing armored trucks to continue their activity and also fund their drug addictions. A pattern soon developed. Jeral Wayne Williams a.k.a. Mutulu Shakur was the leader of the BLA "action five." He would command a stolen truck, and the others would assault the targeted truck with M16 rifles, jump back into the stolen vehicle and flee with the proceeds. 

They would be accompanied by two backup/getaway cars driven by Rosenberg and Clark and would go to a designated decoy U-Haul rented by Gilbert (and accompanied by Boudin) and the five BLA members would hide in the back with the proceeds. They had a number of successful robberies and on June 2nd, 1981, they opened fire on a Brinks truck in the Bronx, killing guard William Moroney and seriously injured another Brinks guard, and they made off with about $200,000. 

Susan Rosenberg had been trolling another Brinks route and reported to the group they would make millions during their last pick up at the bank at Nanuet Mall in suburban Rockland County. Gilbert rented a U-Haul and parked behind an abandoned Korvettes department store (with Boudin) about a mile from the mall. Shakur drove a stolen red Chevy van to the Brinks truck as Guards Peter Paige and Joseph Trombino were loading bags into the truck and the five jumped out firing their M-16 rifles, killing Paige and seriously injuring Trombino. 

They drove off, followed by Rosenberg driving a white Oldsmobile and Clark driving a tan Honda to meet with Gilbert. When they arrived, two bags containing $800,000 were put in the Honda's trunk and four sacks containing another $800,000 were put in the back of the U-Haul. Shakur and the five other robbers then jumped in the back. The red van was abandoned as the U-Haul and two back-up cars headed back toward New York City.

But what they didn't realize was that a young woman living nearby witnessed the transfer and had called the police. The U-Haul soon approached the New York State Thruway entrance in nearby Nyack and four officers armed with a rifle and three pistols had just set up a roadblock and approached the U-Haul. Boudin got out and approached Nyack Detective Arthur Keenan saying there were no black people there while Officer Brian Lennon was returning his shotgun to his car while Keenan still insisted on seeing into the back of the truck.

The six in the back of the U-Haul heard Keenan and got their rifles ready, flung open the door and began firing at the officers. Keenan was hit twice and took cover behind a tree and began returning fire. Officer Waverly "Skipper" Brown, the only black member of the Nyack force, was hit and returned fire. He was hit and fell again, while one of the shooters pumped more bullets into him. Sergeant Ed O'Grady took cover behind his vehicle returning fire. Kneeling while reloading, one of the shooters coolly walked over to him and shot him three times with his M-16. 

Lennon, still in his patrol car, started firing at the U-Haul with his rifle, then drew his pistol and started firing as the U-Haul tried to ram his vehicle. They were stuck by the roadblock and the patrol car and fled, abandoning the U-Haul and the money. Lennon was stuck in his car, blocked by the U-Haul on one side and O'Grady, who was dying, blocking the other.

Meanwhile, Michael Koch, an off-duty officer who had been stuck in the roadblock, saw Kathy Boudin start running along the side of the Thruway and pursued her and tackled her as she shouted and tried to resist. David Gilbert jumped in the passenger seat of Clark's Honda while BLA shooter Sam Brown jumped in the back. 

Marilyn Buck had strapped a gun to her leg and in her haste to remove it during the shootout shot herself in the leg. She staggered to Rosenberg's Olds and sat in the passenger's seat. Then BLA shooter Solomon Bouines jumped in the back seat. Both cars then fled the scene at a high rate of speed. 

Meanwhile, in nearby South Nyack, Police Chief Alan Colsey had been monitoring the police radio and heard that O'Grady and Lennon intended to stop the U-Haul and he began racing toward the scene and arrived just when the Honda and Olds were fleeing and a high-speed chase began, including weaving through other traffic. 

During the pursuit, they approached a sharp turn at an intersection. Rosenberg in the Olds negotiated the turn, but Clark in the Honda crashed into a wall, totaling it. Colsey pulled over to focus on the Honda while Rosenberg continued on. Using his car as a shield, Colsey pulled out his gun and ordered the terrorists to come out with their hands up. 

Gilbert emerged but kept slowing walking toward Colsey until he repeatedly ordered him to stop. Clark kept searching under her seat until backup arrived and was arrested. A gun was found under her seat, and a magazine was found in her purse. Brown was injured during the crash and was eventually removed.

The two bags were found in the Honda and the four bags were found in the abandoned U-Haul. All $1.6 million was recovered. Three people were dead and four terrorists were under arrest and several more were now fugitives. 

Gilbert bitterly complained about his treatment in prison and even that prisons existed. Sam Brown was severed from the trial and he and Clark were joined by Donald Weems a.k.a. Kuwasi Balagoon, who was arrested in early 1982. Kathy Boudin, at the urging of her father the leftist super lawyer Leonard Boudin, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years. 

Gilbert, Clark and Weems argued that the government had no right to try them, with Gilbert saying that "we are neither terrorists nor criminals...we became freedom fighters." Often during the trial, the three would cause disruptions so they had the audio piped into their cells. After the three were convicted in 1983, Judge David Ritter gave them the maximum, 75-years-to-life (25 for each murder) meaning they would have to serve at least 75 years. Ritter said the three defendants "hold society in contempt and have no respect for human life," and there was "no chance for future rehabilitation." Weems would later die in prison from aids in 1986. 

But in 1985, Clark was sentenced to two years of solitary confinement for plotting with Marilyn Buck and fellow terrorists Linda Sue Evans and Laura Whitehorn to escape. The three had already been involved with several bombings in New York and Washington including the U.S. Capitol in 1983 with Susan Rosenberg, who was arrested a year earlier, and they were plotting more.

In 2006, Clark renewed her attempts to gain freedom by attempting to overturn her conviction in 1983 because she had no legal counsel, even though she had refused one, but the effort failed. In 2010, Clark again renewed her attempts to gain freedom. She asked then Governor David Paterson for clemency, but on his last day in office, he denied her. Then in 2012, she had a favorable profile in the New York Times where she wanted to bond with her daughter who was less than a year old during the Brinks arrest. In 2014, she sent letters to then Governor Cuomo and applied for clemency.

In 2016, she approached Governor Cuomo to meet with her in prison. He went to Bedford Hills Prison for Women to meet Clark but refused to meet with any Brink's survivors and victims. She now claimed remorse for the victims and mentioned her work against aids and with service dogs. Cuomo said, "that she had been a "a 20-year-old accessory" (actually about to turn 32) and he got "a sense of her sole" and granted her clemency, and a stunned Michael Paige (son of Peter Paige), and others responded.

Without his action, she would have to serve her full sentence but now would have to face the State Parole Board. Cuomo, who had appointed many of them to six-year terms said, "she has a hell of a case." Letter-writing campaigns to Cuomo ran ten-to-one against her parole, including police organizations and law enforcement.

Her parole hearing took place in April 2017. Three of the fifteen Commissioners were chosen at random, and it was obvious that Clark thought she would be freed, but the questions were direct. Clark admitted the money would be used to buy deadly weapons, that her fellow perpetrators were armed, and they hoped to steal millions of dollars.  

She reluctantly admitted hearing the shots during the robbery at the bank and didn't know there was a pistol under her car seat after she had fled--which was found after she was arrested after Officer Colsey said she was searching for it while he demanded that she surrender. She also didn't know how the magazine clip for the gun got in her purse. She also admitted having no remorse for O'Grady, Brown and Paige or their three widows and nine children for years but now claimed she did. 

Clark, Cuomo and others were stunned when they voted 3-0 to deny her parole. They noted her previous criminal activity when she was jailed for nine months in 1969 during the violent Vietnam "Days of Rage" protests; later during the Brinks robbery where she was in her mid-thirties; her lack of remorse for the victims for several years; that she had conspired with other terrorists to break out of prison; that there was overwhelming opposition from law enforcement and the public to her release and that she was a "symbol of violent and terroristic crime." 

That December, Clark sued the Parole Board for bias. Her lawyers claimed, "she had accepted responsibility for her crimes" and demanded the decision be overturned. By the time of her next Parole Hearing in April 2019, Cuomo had appointed two members of the Parole Board, including Tana Agostini, who it was found had married a convicted murderer. 

When the hearing began, Agostini took control, and Clark repeatedly expressed remorse and mentioned she wanted to bond with her daughter. Clark again claimed she didn't know there was a gun under her seat or how the magazine ended up in her purse and claimed she came out of the Honda with her hands up, but Officer Colsey said she was removed from the car by backup officers. 

Commissioner W. Walter Smith, Jr appointed by George Pataki, asked about her letters with Buck and others about a prison break, but she repeatedly lost her memory. Most of the rest of the hearing involved Cuomo appointees Agostini and Ellen Alexander focusing on Clark's social work, including on AIDS and service animals. 

The decision was 2-1 to release Clark, with Smith dissenting. He noted her criminal behavior during protests during the war, the excessive violence of the Brinks robbery and plotting with other terrorists to escape. He finished by saying, "media coverage will lessen. What will not diminish is the loss of the loved ones of O'Grady, Brown and Paige. The sounds of their weeping will remain. I vote to deny your release at this time." 

The reaction from law enforcement and family members was swift, bitter and angry. Michael Paige, son of Brink's driver Peter Paige said "my entire family by this decision...Judith Clark should never see the light of day. She should remain in prison the rest of her life." Patrick Lynch of the Police Benevolent Association said, "Judith Clark is a murderer and terrorist...she will be allowed to escape accountability for her crimes. This is not justice." 

Arthur Keenan bitterly said, "Cuomo took it upon himself to give her clemency in 2016, but he never spoke to me or any of the families," even though Keenan repeatedly asked. Keenan and Paige later sued the Board because Agostini had hidden that she was married to a murderer. The decision stood, but she is no longer on the Board after serving her allotted six years.

In 2021, after a New York State investigation reported that Cuomo had harassed 11 women mostly on his own staff (and later include two more), and was facing removal by the New York Senate, he was contacted by San Francisco D.A. Chesa Boudin for a favor. Boudin's parents were David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, and he asked Cuomo if he could give issue clemency to his father for the Brinks murders and make him eligible for parole by the board Cuomo now had complete control over (Chesa would be recalled in a landslide a year later as a failed D.A.). So, Cuomo issued clemency for Gilbert in his final hours in office on August 23. 

The parole hearing took place on October 19, 2021, which was just one day before the 40th anniversary of the Brinks murders. The three commissioners were all Cuomo appointees. They spent the first half reminiscing about Gilbert's anti-war activity (even though he was twice convicted of assaulting the police) and the second half about his AIDS work and other social activity in prison. They only briefly talked about the Brinks murders, where Gilbert admitted hearing the shots in the distance from the robbery while he waited for them in the U-Haul. It was like a talk among old friends. 

They made the decision on October 26 and released him on November 4 but kept both actions private at the time because, like Judith Clark, there was anger and disgust expressed at Gilbert's possible release. O'Grady's son, Edward the third, wrote that Cuomo's last-minute grant of clemency was an act of cowardice, and that Gilbert "wasn't an activist or symbol", but just a "thief and a murderer."

Four years later, Cuomo is desperate to make a political comeback after his forced resignation as Governor to become Mayor of New York and still purports to support law enforcement and the police in spite of his direct and indirect history of letter cop killers go free.

Mamdani is anxious to begin his path to power in that same lofty position even with his ties to the Democratic Socialists of America and his attempts to downplay his brutal history of ugly comments about law enforcement. I reached out to his Assembly offices in Albany and in Queens and his campaign if he wished to make a statement about Chesimard or DSA's praise of her and have received no response.